


i promise there'll be fire

by amaanogawa



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Falling In Love, First Meetings, Fluff, Food Truck Worker!Keith, Getting Together, M/M, Soulmates, Surfer/Backpacker!Shiro, nothing dramatic just two people who are meant to be together in every way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-20
Updated: 2018-06-20
Packaged: 2019-05-26 00:39:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14988986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amaanogawa/pseuds/amaanogawa
Summary: (“How can this town contain you?” He murmurs, voice dipping into softness in a way that never fails to make Keith falter. “I feel like I’m burning up just by being in your presence.”Keith’s face colours under the weight of Shiro’s stare and he tries to lower his head, but Shiro lifts it back into the moonlight with a gentle hand, his thumb brushing along the height of Keith’s cheekbones.“See? Red, like fire.”)ORTwo people who discover thathomeexists in the heart of another.





	i promise there'll be fire

“Order 141, four halibut tacos on whole wheat, extra guac, hold the slaw.” Keith rambles off the receipt in his hands as he passes it to the man that steps up to take it, braving a courteous customer service smile despite the ache in his legs and weariness in his bones.

He sticks the receipt on the metal peg. Huffs a breath. The lunch rush is over, finally, and it should be pretty slow from now until he finishes his shift in 3 hours. Painfully slow really, but now Keith knows that he’s probably just finding things to complain about. He props his elbow on the counter of the too-small food truck as he gazes out at the crashing sapphire blue waves of the Pacific. There aren’t too many people on the beach today- it’s a weekday, and though the sun is shining it’s early enough in the year that the water is still kind of chilly for swimming, so the people who are mulling around on the sandy shores are simply walking or resting on their beach blankets.

The days pass by peacefully, just like this. It’s quiet and it’s routine and Keith doesn’t mind it, but all the same it feels a little empty. It’s only temporary, he reminds himself- right now working is all that Keith knows to do, saving up money for a “just in case”, some hypothetical possibility in the future that he hopes will hit him in the face with realization.

A moment that will make him go _aha, this is what I’m meant to_ _do_. _This is why I am here._

It sounds too much like a pipe dream for him to bank on it, Keith thinks, the corner of his mouth lifting in a resigned smirk. He cups his cheek in his hand, staring out at the ocean.

At the very least the food truck is prime location for people watching- it’s not usually very interesting, but it’s something to do while he waits for his shift to end so he can go home and eat leftover Chinese takeout for dinner and watch reruns of terrible soap operas on his tiny, second-rate TV.

Today’s crowd boasts the usual bikini-clad girls laying on beach towels soaking in some sun, a few young kids bumping around a beach volleyball while their parents chat on the side, and a single man in a black wetsuit holding a purple and white surf board, heading towards the waters with clear intent.

“He’s going to freeze.” Keith murmurs to himself, brows crinkling in confusion. But if the water is as cold as Keith knows it is, the man doesn’t seem to care as he wades in undeterred, lying on his surf board belly down and paddling about two hundred meters out before he stops, propping himself up and straddling his board as he waits for a wave.

Even as a small dot of a person drifting alone in the ocean Keith can see how ramrod straight the man’s back is as he sits, patient, hands brushing along the water’s surface as if he can predict how it will move from feel alone. Then suddenly though the water is still, the surfer paddles forward, back arched just slightly, shoulders back, arms rigid and strong.

Out of nowhere a wave appears as if the man had known it would, and the surfer paddles with its momentum, growing and growing until he pushes himself up and stands, riding under the wave as it curls over him like the petal of a flower- somehow delicate yet all-consuming all at once, enveloping him in a glittering azure curtain.

Keith works on the beach- he sees surfers almost every single day but none of them look as ethereal as this person does. None of them as _connected_ with the water as this man, who rides the wave as if it’s an extension of his own body. His movements are fluid, graceful, even as he snaps his board at an angle that sends a sharp spray of white foam up from behind him before falling off his board, a dazzlingly wide smile on his face visible even from the shore.

Keith is enamored.

He ends up watching the surfer until the end of his shift, serving the odd customer that comes up every now and again. When his shift officially ends, he chats with his co-worker that had come to relieve him for a scant couple minutes, clocking out before walking off the road and out onto the beach, eyes automatically scanning the water for a shock of white hair that Keith had adopted as his marker for finding the man. It takes a couple moments this time, of Keith squinting through the reflecting light bouncing off of the waves, before he finds it.

Except it’s barely visible in the water where the man is lying motionless drifting with the tides, surf board bobbing next to him.

Stunned, Keith watches for a few seconds longer to ascertain that yea, the man is definitely not moving, before looking up in a panic to find the lifeguard. He’s all the way down the beach, engrossed in a conversation with some of the bikini girls. Too far away and too distracted for Keith to yell for.

“Shit. Shit. _Shit._ ” Keith curses, taking off in a sprint towards the beach. He barely thinks to kick his shoes off and then he’s running straight into the water, eyes trained on the streak of white hair floating in the distance. The water is fucking _freezing_ , just as he had thought, and by the time the water is deep enough that Keith starts swimming he can barely feel his toes.

The man is probably passed out from hypothermia after surfing in _this_ for 3 hours.  

Keith rips through the water as fast as he can, eyes burning from the salt and he can see the man now, just up ahead.

Desperately, he reaches an arm out and seizes the man’s upper arm.

“Hey!” Keith yells, wrenching the man close.

Except the man flails when Keith had been expecting a limp body, and for a few moments they’re both pulled underneath the surface of the water, bubbles and salty foam spraying every which way before Keith surfaces again gasping for air.

When Keith blinks the water out of his vision, the man is staring back at him with wide, expressive gunmetal eyes.

It goes to say that Keith hadn’t been able to see that small detail from the shore. Nor the sharp cut of the man’s jawline, or the swell of his muscled chest.

“Are you okay?” The man asks, concerned, but Keith finds himself so tongue-tied that all they do is bob slowly in the water for a few silent seconds, the man’s large hands strong on Keith’s shoulders as they stare at each other.

“M-me?” Keith finally stutters in disbelief. “I thought _you_ were drowning.”

“Huh?”

“You weren’t moving- I looked away for a minute and when I looked back-” The confused look on the man’s face is making Keith feel stupider by the second, paired with what he feels must be just about the daftest expression on his face because it hadn’t crossed his mind that man would look like _this_. “You weren’t…moving.”

“Oh. _Oh_.” The man breaks into a smile, shaking his head as he chuckles. “I’m so sorry to have worried you. I’m fine, I was just drifting.”

“Drifting.”

“Yea, you know. Lying in the water, staring at the sky. It’s so peaceful out here, it kind of makes you forget about everything else.”

“Right. Well, I’m glad you’re not drowning?”

The man stares at Keith, mouth curving into a soft smile, and right here and now Keith wants to tell him that it’s officially illegal for him to smile like that. He could hurt someone. “But you really jumped in here to save me?”

“I mean. I think anyone would if they thought someone was drowning.”

“That’s not true. I think it says a lot about your character that you’re so selfless.”

Keith doesn’t quite know how he got to be here, treading water and bobbing gently in the Pacific Ocean with an incredibly attractive surfer man who keeps trying to compliment him, but now that the adrenaline has worn off his next words come out stuttered as he tries to keep his teeth from chattering.

“N-not to c-cut this short because I’m having a g-great time, honestly,” Keith says, amicably, “b-but I’d like to get back to s-shore now.”

“Oh!” The man’s eyes widen again. “Are you cold? I guess the water is kind of chilly, it’s still early in the year.”

“K-kind of? It’s _f-f-freezing_.”

“Here, hop on my surf board.”

Keith tries to tell him that he _can’t_ , he’s shaking too hard to have the balance to prop himself up without tipping the board over, but then the man smiles at him warmly and he says, “don’t worry. I’ve got you.”

He boosts Keith up with a strong, yet gentle hold on Keith’s waist and Keith’s fingertips trembling where they rest on the man’s biceps, possibly because he realizes that the surfer’s hands are so large that together they can almost circle his waist more than it is the water. But thirty seconds later Keith is sitting on the surfboard, most of his body is out of the water and he’s quickly warming up with the sun on his back, being pushed back to shore by the man who keeps lightheartedly conversing with him whilst paddling along in the water.

When they get back on land Keith is feeling thoroughly awkward as he goes to fetch his abandoned shoes lying haphazardly in the sand. He isn’t sure what to do now, if he’s supposed to have one last strained laugh over the misunderstanding before promptly excusing himself or-

“Do you live nearby?”

Keith jumps, lifting his head with wide eyes. “Excuse me?”

“I was wondering how long you’d have to stay in wet clothes for because it looks really uncomfortable. If you’d like I have some dry clothes you can borrow until you got home to change.”

“Oh. That’s nice of you, thanks. But…” The man is a full head taller than Keith and nearly twice as wide, and the corner of Keith’s mouth twitches upward imagining himself in any of his clothing. ”I don’t think it’d fit. I live close by, anyway. You can only live so far away from anywhere in this town.”

“I guess so. Well, after you get changed… can I buy you a cup of coffee?”

This, Keith hadn’t been expecting. He opens his mouth but the answer gets stuck somewhere between his brain and his throat and he’s left gaping like a fish, some mixture of surprise and embarrassment on his face.

“Uh, what?” Is what he ends up saying, because Keith is nothing if not eloquent.

“Would you like to have coffee with me?” The man cocks his head, looking slightly sheepish, a faint pink blooming on his cheeks. “I’d like to thank you.”

“For…?”

“Trying to save my life, I guess?”

“But you weren’t even drowning.”

“I know but I’m thankful anyway.”

“But-”

“You can say no, of course. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to come off as brusque.” The man says quickly. Keith studies his face for a few moments, eyes big and genuine with water beading down the edge of his jawline, and thinks _what the hell._

_Why not?_

“Sure.” Keith says finally, offering a hesitant smile. “Coffee would be nice.”

“O-oh. Great! I mean, if you’re sure.”

“I’m sure. I’ll meet you back here in 15 minutes after I change.”

“Okay, that sounds great- I said that already. Okay.”

Keith turns, taking two sinking steps in the sand towards the road when he stops in his tracks and turns, mouth curving into a sheepish smile.

“I’m Keith, by the way.”

The man blinks, comically slow, before his eyes widen in realization and he laughs, reaching up to rub the back of his neck as he takes a step forward and extends his hand out to Keith to shake.

“I’m Shiro. It’s nice to meet you, Keith.”

\---

And that’s how Keith ends up sitting across from Shiro at a nearby beachside café approximately 20 minutes later, coffees and sandwiches laid out in front of them. Shiro had insisted on paying, nudging Keith aside and determinedly pulling out his credit card, not budging no matter how hard Keith tried to get in front of him.

He looks different in dry clothes. A navy button up shirt rolled up to the elbows that finally points Keith's attention from Shiro's face towards a shining metal prosthetic arm, a pair of black jeans and brown leather shoes. A grey beanie covering damp hair, the tell-tale white tuft hanging in his eyes. Shiro lifts his cup of coffee to his lips, lashes fluttering as he looks down and takes a sip.

Conversation is easy with Shiro. He’s gentle and funny and smart, and has a smile that makes you feel warm right down to the pit of your stomach. Keith isn’t one to be so easily pulled in by another person- he can count on one hand the number of close friends that he has, and even then those bonds were developed over many years, forged slowly as Keith learned to lower his walls.

Talking to Shiro is like talking to an old friend that he’s known forever. They click, just like that, and it’s unbelievably easy to keep the conversation flowing. It seems like the more Keith learns about Shiro, the more he likes him- the little facts about this person sitting across from him build up, one by one, for Keith to file away safely like hidden treasures.

His name is Takashi Shirogane. He was born in Japan but immigrated at a young age, where he was raised by his grandparents. His childhood dream was to become an astronaut and although it didn’t come to fruition, he still loves the stars and he can go on and on about them, eyes wide with excitement right there in the little café, arms waving dramatically through the air as he talks about how _the largest black hole is the size of approximately 20 billion suns, that’s essentially incomprehensible to the human mind! Isn’t that crazy?_

When he turned 18, he enlisted in the military. Long story short, he lost his arm, was honourably discharged, received a Purple Heart award, sold all of his things, bought one way ticket to Budapest and left the country. Since then he's been making his way around the world, staying at each place for a week or two before moving on to the next.

“I just felt really empty, like I wasn’t sure what my purpose was anymore.” Shiro says carefully, finger tracing the rim of his coffee cup absentmindedly. “I wanted to find something, anything, that made me go _aha, so that’s what I’m meant to do._ You know what I mean?”

Keith stares, jaw tightening.

“Yea.” He says. “I do.”

They talk for hours, right up until a tired looking waitress comes over to inform them that the café is closing, and it’s only when they sheepishly exit the shop that they realize the sky has gone dark. They walk into the sand, towards the crashing waves of the sea, now an entirely different atmosphere as the haze of night surrounds them.

“Wow.” Shiro breathes, looking up with wide eyes. “The stars are beautiful out here. I’ve travelled half the world but the sky somehow looks different everywhere I go, as strange as it sounds.”

“We’re a small town so the light pollution isn’t so bad. The stars are usually pretty visible.”

A moment of silence passes before Keith looks up to realize that Shiro is staring at him, eyes soft, head tilted in question.

“Do you want to _really_ see them? I have my telescope in my car. If you want, we could…”

“Yes.” Keith says, immediately, and Shiro smiles.

“Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

He heads off towards the small parking lot at the side of the beach, and as Keith watches him go an indescribable feeling is bubbling up in his chest. He’s only known Shiro for a few hours and he already feels too much too soon, because Shiro is kind and he’s warm and somehow he says things that were on the tip of Keith’s tongue before Keith even says it.

There’s an unmistakable sense of _familiarity_ there, like he had always been meant to find Shiro, pseudo-drowning while he stares at the sky in the water. Like there was something that purposefully led him here to this small ocean-side town, to the exact part of the beach where Keith happened to be working.

When Shiro returns, he has a blanket draped over his arm, a bottle of wine in his hand and a large metal case in the other.

“Don’t suppose you’d be up for some cheap wine?” He asks, a small embarrassed smile on his face as he lifts the bottle up with a one-shouldered shrug. Keith simply extends his hand to grab the bottle, and as he unscrews the cap, Shiro lays the blanket out on the sand behind them, setting the telescope case down on it.

Keith takes a seat on the blanket next to where Shiro is kneeling, unpacking the telescope and assembling it with deft hands.

It’s surreal to be here, with someone who had been a mere stranger only hours ago, and now all Keith can think of is how beautiful he looks framed by the crashing waves and a backdrop of stars, concentrating on his task.

Long lashes, a light pink scar, and gunmetal eyes.

It feels like a new beginning.

Shiro is peering through the telescope, adjusting the focus and the angle, and then he turns, smiling brighter than Keith has seen him so far today. He beckons Keith forward with a welcoming hand. “Look, it’s Polaris!”

Keith smiles, joins Shiro beside the telescope as he leans in to take a look.

“Wow.” Keith whispers, feeling breathless, but to be completely honest, it’s not entirely because of the star.

They spend hours more passing the wine bottle between the two of them, taking turns peering through the telescope as Shiro tells him all about each star they look at. At some point from here to there they lay down on the blanket and Keith finds himself curled into Shiro’s side as he talks, mapping out the details of his face the best as he can through the haze of sleepiness and wine.

White bangs, a sharp jawline, and flushed cheeks.

Shiro looks down in the middle of talking and his breath dies on his lips when he realizes how close Keith is, tucked against his shoulder, looking up with half lidded eyes and just a little bit of hope.

“Keith.” Shiro says, voice slightly hoarse as if he can’t breathe.

“Yea.”

“I…”

“…yea.”

And because it’s almost like he and Shiro exist on their own separate radio frequency, Keith tips his face up just as Shiro dips down and they meet halfway in a chaste kiss, pressing their lips together softly as Shiro cups the back of Keith’s neck, threading his fingers in Keith’s hair. It feels like magic, the way something cosmic fills Keith’s lungs as he kisses Shiro. Maybe it’s starlight in his veins, like Shiro is breathing it straight into Keith’s body when he moves his lips, gentle yet insistent.

Like magic, pure and true.

When they pull back, there isn’t any look of surprise or bewilderment on either of their faces.

Just what Keith knows they both feel, right in the depths of their souls.

Belonging.

Just that.

\---

After that night, they spend as much time together as possible- aside from the days that Keith works, they are stuck at the hip. Keith doesn’t ever get tired of Shiro- not the way he hides his mouth behind the back of his hand when he laughs, or the way his cologne smells- sweet and spicy, leaving faint wisps of it behind whenever he hugs Keith. Not even the way Shiro always takes _forever_ to decide what to get whenever they go out to eat.

(“ _Shiro. Do you want yogurt in your smoothie or not? We’re holding up the line.” Keith says, exasperated, as Shiro stands at the smoothie counter for a full 3 minutes and 47 seconds humming and hawing over yogurt._ Yogurt _._

_“I know- it’s just, the added protein is beneficial but I don’t know if I’m in the mood- is it Greek yogurt? Or regular yogurt?”)_

Shiro teaches Keith how to surf after learning that Keith hasn’t ever tried despite living in an ocean-side town for his entire life. Less than 30 minutes after starting Keith successfully rides his first green wave without even shaking, makes it all the way to shallow water before falling off and when he surfaces, Shiro is there to lift him with his hands strong on Keith’s waist, twirling him round and round in the water.

“You did it, baby!” Shiro laughs excitedly, eyes practically twinkling. “You’re a natural! You’re amazing! You’re-”

Keith flushes a deep red, unused to Shiro’s generosity with compliments, and kisses him hard to shut him up.

In return Keith takes Shiro out on his bike, a Kawasaki Ninja 300 that he had bought secondhand and tinkered with until it purred exactly the way he wanted to under his fingertips. It’s all sleek lines and matte black over hot rod red, Keith’s single most prized possession and the only splurge he has ever made in his life. Shiro had downright refused to get on without a lot of goading and reassurance but eventually he relented, letting out a yelp that he denied ever happened when the bike roared to life. Keith rides to an empty back road and _guns it_ , relishing in the way Shiro’s arms tighten around his waist as he buries his helmet-covered face uncomfortably into Keith’s shoulder.

( _Later that night, once they’ve returned to town and are yet again tipsy lying on a blanket on the shores of their beach underneath the stars- Shiro cups Keith’s face in his hands, eyes wondrous._

_“How can this town contain you?” He murmurs, voice dipping into softness in a way that never fails to make Keith falter. “I feel like I’m burning up just by being in your presence.”_

_Keith’s face colours under the weight of Shiro’s stare and he tries to lower his head, but Shiro lifts it back into the moonlight with a gentle hand, his thumb brushing along the height of Keith’s cheekbones._

_“See? Red, like fire.”_ )

The first week passes and bleeds into the second, and the more time Keith spends with Shiro the more sure he becomes that Shiro _is_ his _aha_ moment. That no matter what he ends up doing in his life, he’s meant to do it with Shiro by his side.

Although, that becomes a difficult notion when Shiro is meant to board a plane and leave forever in a mere 3 days’ time.

Keith has known this from the start. Shiro’s itinerary was decided before he even set foot in this town, before he even met Keith, and Shiro has a dream. He wants to surf in every coast in the world, eat every culture’s version of a pancake, hold a koala, go white water rafting in Belize, conquer his fear of snakes-

He has things he’s meant to do and Keith won’t ask him to stay.

After all, just because Shiro is Keith’s _aha_ moment doesn’t mean that Keith is Shiro’s.

And Keith is okay with that.

He’s just thankful to have met Shiro, to have had the pleasure of knowing someone so gifted, so passionate, so big hearted, even if it was for a limited amount of time. As time passes Keith can tell that Shiro is thinking about when he must leave as well. He stays quiet more often, sometimes getting lost in his thoughts while Keith is speaking to him, chin propped in his hand as he stares dazedly at nothing in particular.

 _It’s okay_ , Keith wants to tell him. _You can go. Don’t look back. Go, be great._

But not asking Shiro to stay is one thing. Keith can do that.

Telling him to go is another.

The night before Shiro is supposed to leave, Keith takes his hand as they walk down the coast, further and further away from the shining town lights.

“Where are you taking me?” Shiro asks with a smile, but he walks with Keith regardless. He hasn’t ever failed to follow when Keith leads- a testament of faith built on a shaky foundation, weak with lack of proper time.

Time, time, time.

There’s never enough of it, is there?

“You’ll see.” Keith says simply, and all he gets in return is a squeeze of his fingers as a promise that Shiro isn’t far behind.

The terrain goes from sand to rock and even further than that they start jumping carefully from boulder to boulder, the water lapping just at their feet. They take the rocks around a steep rock wall that extends way over their heads, each jump getting more and more dangerous but Shiro keeps up without much trouble at all. Keith knew that he would.

Eventually they reach a crack in the cliff face, footing and space just barely big enough for Shiro to fit through if he side stepped. With a sly smile, Keith slips in, jerking his head to motion for Shiro to follow.

When they get in, it’s just as Keith remembers it to be. A hidden cove tucked away in the heart of the cliff, the narrow entrance widening into a sizable room. Further in a pool opens up in the ground, ocean water that ebbs and flows peacefully against the rock edge. Light streams in from the crack, hitting the water and lighting the entire cove up, rippling blue and smelling of salt and wet stone.

Keith has never brought anyone here before. When he first found this place as a child he thought he had entered a different world, a new reality where things were different than the one that he knew. This has always been Keith’s hidden sanctuary, his quiet place. He ran away from the home more times than he could remember, hiding out here where the cliff kept him safe from wind and storm. Eventually he always had to go back because he got hungry and cold, but for a while he could believe that he would never have to return to a place where he wasn’t wanted, wasn’t cared for.

For a while, this cove was his safety.

It’s the last thing he wants to share with Shiro before he says goodbye.

“Wow. What is this place?” Shiro breathes, wondrous, taking in the sight.

“A place I found a long time ago. My place.”

“Keith-”

“Come, sit.” Tugging Shiro’s arm, Keith leads him over to where rock meets water, kicking his shoes to the side and rolling up his pant legs so that he can sit and dip his feet into the pool. “It’s still freezing, but it feels nice.”

After a brief moment of hesitation Shiro follows suit, laying his shoes neatly beside Keith’s messily strewn ones, and he takes a seat close enough that Keith can feel his body heat rolling off of him in waves. Shiro is a lot of things but he is always warm, in every way that counts.

A comfortable silence settles over them as they kick their feet in the water. Keith thinks about all the things that he wants to say to Shiro before the night comes to an end. His natural instinct is simply to bury it all, keep it safe within him and carry it quietly into the future because that’s what Keith does. He feels and he feels but saying it is somehow an impossible task. He’s no good with words. And yet, he doesn’t think he can let Shiro go without making his peace somehow.

Maybe he’ll be clumsy with it, but he has to try, doesn’t he?

“Hey-”

“Keith-”

They both pause abruptly, staring at each other with wide eyes.

“S-sorry. You go first.” Keith stammers, already steeling himself for the worst. For a goodbye.

But Shiro opens his mouth, and then closes it again, looking back into the water silently with a strange expression on his face.

“You know when you first grabbed me in the water?” Is what he finally says, stretching his legs out in front of him before letting them drop with a _splash_. The disturbance creates ripples that grow outward and outward still, reaching the rock edge. “You surprised me so I accidentally dragged you under when I struggled, right? Well, when you surfaced gasping for air you created this huge splash, and all these water droplets were raining down on you as you came up. It created a rainbow over your head- that’s what happened the first moment I laid eyes on you. You appeared literally haloed by a rainbow. Crazy, isn’t it?”

Shiro looks up and into Keith’s eyes, smiling wide and somehow fearful at the same time. “I knew right from the beginning that you were going to be special. I just didn’t know _how_ special. You-”

He bites his lip, brows drawing together.

“You’re everything, Keith. Everything. I’ve been to so many different places, met so many people, but when I’m with you, I feel like… like I’m _home_.”

Keith doesn’t even want to breathe though his lungs are burning, because he feels like if he makes any movement at all Shiro will disappear from his sight like wisps of smoke. As if Shiro is just a fever dream.

“I’ve never felt this way about anyone before. And I’m not willing to let you go.”

“But you’re-” The words die in his mouth and Keith has to take a beat to draw in a shaky breath before continuing. “You’re leaving.”

“That’s what I’m trying to say, Keith. I don’t want to go. I want to stay.”

“No!” Keith shouts, hands clenching into fists at his side. The word bounces of the cave walls, creating an echo that resounds over and over again, making him flinch at the strength of his own reaction. “You can’t. You have places to go, dream to accomplish. You’re meant for more than this town, Shiro. You’re meant to be great.”

“I’m meant to be with you.” Shiro’s voice doesn’t waver as he looks on, strong as he always is. “You’re the moment I was searching for, Keith. My moment.”

“And you’re mine.” Keith says, so softly that it comes out as a whisper. “But Shiro, you have to get on that plane tomorrow. You can’t just abandon all of your dreams so that you can stay. I don’t want that.”

The tension in the space is so thick that it’s suffocating. They are on the precipice of something unknown, a deep chasm of untold futures, somehow right there and yet unreachable at the same time.

“Then come with me.” Shiro blurts, pausing right after like he surprised himself.

That wasn’t a response that Keith had been expecting.

He can’t just _leave_. It’s easy to get caught up in the heat of the moment but running off across the world with a man he barely even knows- that’s just not realistic. Or smart. He can’t. Shouldn’t. Keith looks into Shiro’s eyes, _really_ looks, the answer right on the tip of his tongue, and it all disappears.

Gunmetal grey. Genuine and true, with just a little bit of hope.

“I still have things to take care of here.”

Shiro falters, his shoulders drooping a fraction of an inch as he pulls back.

“Give me 6 months.” Keith finishes, determination in his voice. “I want to be more safe financially if I’m going to quit all 3 of my jobs and travel the world. And I need to get a passport. And find a place to keep my bike indefinitely until I want her shipped to me. I need to sublet my apartment. Also I’m still paying installments for my dad’s plot in the cemetery. So-”

He’s rambling now because he’s so nervous his heart is threatening to beat out of his chest, and Shiro is staring at him with wide eyes looking like he hasn’t heard a single word past _give me 6 months_.

“So…you’re saying yes?” Shiro asks, voice breathy.

“I-I guess I am. Yes. But not-“

Keith isn’t able to finish before Shiro is tackling him to the ground, tucking his face into the crook of Keith’s neck as laughter spills from his lips.

“ _Yes_! Yes! Oh, babe. Can you imagine it now? We’ll travel anywhere and everywhere and when we’re tired of that we can find a place to settle down. And you can open a garage and I can teach people to surf, or we can start our own food truck-”

“God, no.” Keith whispers, threading his fingers into Shiro’s hair. “I’m never setting foot in a food truck again for the rest of my life.”

“Fine. A café, then.”

“Where would we go?”

“Anywhere.” Shiro pushes himself up on his arms, hovering over Keith with a smile so wide it looks like it hurts his face. “Anywhere, as long as it’s with you.”

“You sap.” It might almost sound like a jab if Keith’s own voice weren’t laced with so much emotion that he can hear it in himself.

Because he _can_ imagine it. In Fiji, or the Philippines, or maybe Portugal. A beachside garage, a big dog, and Shiro. Maybe someday, a café just like the one they went to for their first date. Endless possibilities. Keith isn’t as good as putting things into words as Shiro is, so he rolls them over, stares at Shiro for a long second feeling breathless with excitement, and leans down to kiss him.

He kisses him and tries to communicate all of the thoughts that he can’t seem to say out loud, sends them with a hope and a prayer that Shiro might possibly understand even just a fraction of all that Keith feels in his chest right now.

When he pulls back, eyes misty despite himself, Shiro reaches up to cup Keith’s cheek in his hand.

“I know, baby. I know.”

They spend the night there in the hidden cove, both of their backs scratched up by the rock as they move together, warmth and warmth upon warmth despite the cool ocean air. Keith digs his fingernails into Shiro’s skin, muffles his voice with Shiro’s mouth, tries to contain everything that is expanding within his heart like a secret.

It was right here, in this very spot nearly a decade ago that Keith would hide and make a wish to the stars or the ocean or whoever was listening, praying that he would never have to return to a home that wasn’t truly home.

It’s right here, right now, that he finds the real thing in a man who holds him, gentle, like Keith has never known before.

The next day, they exit the small, perfect world that they got to experience for just a little while. They hop across the rocks back to the beach, walk back to Shiro’s rented car. Shiro drives to the airport, returns the car at the rental office there. Checks in at the electronic booth and places his travelling backpack on the conveyor belt.

Keith is dressed in one of Shiro’s sweaters, sprayed with an obscene amount of Shiro’s cologne. In Shiro’s luggage is Keith’s shirt, stretched over his pillow.

They’re at the gate now but Shiro keeps finding more things to organize in his carry on, just before the security screening.

“Shiro.” Keith says, soft. His voice doesn’t tremble. “It’s time to go.”

Fingertips stilling where they’re buried inside his backpack, Shiro looks up and sighs.

“I don’t want to go.” He says, and Keith is in his arms before he even needs to motion for it.

“6 months. I’ll come find you. I promise.”

“Yea. I’ll be waiting.”

Everything else has already been said, whispered in fervent breaths for their ears and their ears only.

Everything else, except this one thing.

“I love you.” Keith says, and the words break a little bit in his mouth because of how foreign they are to him but it’s okay. It’s meant to be, just like this and just like him and Shiro.

“I love you too.” Shiro replies with a smile, and he takes Keith’s hand, presses something cold and hard into his palm before giving him one last kiss.

He turns, walking through the door without looking back.

Keith stares after him until he completely disappears from sight, ignoring the pounding of his heart and the pain that has already started to build in his chest.

He looks down. Opens his hand.

Dog tags on a simple ball chain, Shiro’s name gleaming up at him. He pulls it over his head, clutching the metal plates tightly in his fist.

A promise to be kept.

\---

It’s 5 and a half months later and Keith finds himself standing just before the pair of automatic doors that open up into international arrivals in Sydney, Australia.

5 and a half months of sleeping in an oversized sweater that smelled less and less of cologne as time went on. 5 and a half months of sky high phone bills, double shifts and sometimes days or even weeks where Shiro didn’t have connection.

And now he’s here, hands trembling on the straps on his backpack.

Keith takes a deep breath, walks through the doors and there Shiro is, eyes wide and hopeful and scared all at the same time, as if he wasn’t sure if Keith was really going to show up.

There aren’t any thoughts going through Keith’s mind as he takes off in a run, dropping his bag somewhere along the way except _Shiro_. Shiro. Shiro.

He launches himself into Shiro’s open arms and Shiro catches him, Keith’s legs automatically wrapping around Shiro’s waist, arms around Shiro’s neck as he squeezes him tight and then tighter still.

“Hey, baby.” Shiro murmurs, squeezing back. “You found me.”

“I told you I would.” Keith says breathlessly, and then they stay there like that, allowing themselves to get lost in the other for just this one moment.

After Shiro lets Keith down, they collect Keith’s abandoned bag and chat excitedly all the way to the parking lot where Shiro’s car is parked, and Keith gets into the passenger seat as Shiro gets behind the wheel.

“So?” Shiro asks, smile big and wide and beautiful. “Where to?”

Keith laughs, unable to hold back his happiness. He went searching for a single moment and found an entire lifetime, he realizes. Because he’s meant to be _here_ , with this person, and for the first time in his life he feels like he’s right where he’s meant to be. The dog tags hanging around his neck clink together as he leans forward to press a kiss to Shiro’s cheek.

“Just drive.”

**Author's Note:**

> i recently went through a rough patch and just wanted to write something disgustingly romantic and happy. i literally poured every cliche, terribly gross idea i had of peak romance into this one fic and i'm not even sorry for it.
> 
> PS thank you to fer (sctvrns) for being the first person i ever sent a WIP to and for supporting me when i was laying on the ground dying from writer's block i love you with my whole heart
> 
> [my tumblr](https://amaanogawa.tumblr.com) / [twitter](https://twitter.com/amaanogawa_)


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